Humanitarian intervention flounders on the lack of support from the Libyan people, says James Petras* Over the past two weeks Libya has been subjected to the most brutal imperial air, sea and land assault in its modern history. Thousands of bombs and missiles, launched from American and European submarines, warships and fighter planes are destroying Libyan military bases, airports, roads and ports. Dozens of CIA and SAS special forces have been training, advising and mapping targets for the so- called Libyan rebels engaged in a civil war against the Gaddafi government, its armed forces, popular militias and civilian supporters. Despite this massive military support and their imperial allies total control of Libya's sky and coastline, the rebels have proven incapable of mobilising village or town support and are in retreat, after being confronted by the Libyan government's highly motivated troops and village militias. One of the most flimsy excuses for this inglorious rebel retreat offered by the Cameron-Obama-Sarkozy coalition, and echoed by the mass media, is that their Libyan "clients" are outgunned. Obviously Obama and company don't count the scores of jets, dozens of warships and submarines, the hundreds of daily attacks and the thousands of bombs dropped on the Libyan government since the start of Western imperial intervention. Direct military intervention of 20 major and minor foreign military powers, savaging the sovereign Libyan state, as well as scores of political accomplices in the United Nations, do not contribute to any military advantage for the imperial clients. The Los Angeles Times described how "... many rebels in gun- mounted trucks turned and fled... even though their heavy machine guns and antiaircraft guns seemed a match for any similar government vehicle." Indeed, no "rebel" force in recent history has received such sustained military support from so many imperial powers in their confrontation with an established regime. Nevertheless, the rebel forces on the front lines are in full retreat, fleeing in disarray and thoroughly disgusted with their generals and ministers back in Benghazi. Meanwhile their leaders, in elegant suits and tailored uniforms, answer the call to battle by attending summits in London where the liberation strategy consists of their appeal, before the mass media, for imperial ground troops. Morale among the frontline rebels is low: According to credible reports from the battlefront at Ajdabiya, "Rebels... complained that their erstwhile commanders were nowhere to be found. They griped about comrades who fled to the relative safety of Benghazi... (they complained that) forces in Benghazi monopolised 400 donated field radios and 400 more... satellite phones intended for the battlefield... (mostly) rebels say commanders rarely visit the battlefield and exercise little authority because many fighters do not trust them." Apparently "Twitters" don't work on the battlefield. Decisive issues in a civil war are not weapons, training or leadership, although certainly these factors are important: The basic difference between the military capability of the pro-government Libyan forces and the Libyan rebels, backed by both Western imperialists and "progressives", lies in their motivation, values and material advances. Western imperialist intervention has heightened national consciousness among the Libyan people, who now view their confrontation with the anti-Gaddafi rebels as a fight to defend their homeland from foreign air and sea power and puppet land troops -- a powerful incentive for any people or army. The opposite is true for the rebels whose leaders have surrendered their national identity and depend entirely on imperialist military intervention to put them in power. Which rank and file rebel fighters are going to risk their lives, fighting their own compatriots, just to place their country under an imperialist or neo-colonial rule? Finally Western journalists' accounts are coming to light of village and town pro-government militias repelling the opposition. The Globe and Mail reports how "a busload of (Libyan) women suddenly emerged (from one village)... and began cheering as though they supported the rebels" drawing the Western-backed rebels into a deadly ambush set by their pro-government husbands and neighbours. The rebels are seen as invaders who enter their villages, breaking doors, blowing up homes and arresting and accusing local leaders of being "fifth columnists" for Gaddafi. The threat of military rebel occupation, the arrest and abuse of local authorities, and the disruption of highly valued family, clan and local community relations have motivated local Libyan militias and fighters to attack the Western- backed rebels, who are regarded as outsiders in terms of regional and clan allegiances; by trampling on local mores, they now find themselves in hostile territory. Which rebel fighter would be willing to die defending hostile terrain? Yet they have only to call on foreign air-power to "liberate" the pro-government village for them. The Western media, unable to grasp these material advances by the pro-government forces, attribute popular backing of Gaddafi to coercion or co-optation, relying on the rebels' claims that everybody is secretly opposed to the regime. There is another material reality, which is conveniently ignored: The Gaddafi regime has effectively used the country's oil wealth to build a vast network of public schools, hospitals and clinics. According to the Financial Times Libyans have the highest per capita income in Africa at $14,900 per annum. Tens of thousands of low-income Libyan students have received scholarships to study at home and overseas. The urban infrastructure has been modernised, agriculture is subsidised and small-scale producers and manufacturers receive government credit. Gaddafi has overseen these effective programs, in addition to enriching his own clan. On the other hand, the Libyan rebels and their imperial mentors have targeted the entire civilian economy, bombed Libyan cities, cut trade and commercial networks, blocked the delivery of subsidised food and welfare to the poor, caused the suspension of schools and forced hundreds of thousands of foreign professionals, teachers, doctors and skilled contract workers to flee. Libyans, who might otherwise resent Gaddafi's long autocratic tenure in office, are now faced with the choice between supporting an advanced, functioning welfare state or a foreign-directed military conquest. Many have chosen, quite rationally, to stand with the regime. The debacle of the imperial-backed rebel forces, despite their immense technical-military advantage, is due to their role as "internal colonialists" invading local communities and above all their wanton destruction of a social-welfare system which has benefited millions of ordinary Libyans for two generations. The failure of the rebels to advance, despite the massive support of imperial air and sea power, means that the US-France-Britain coalition will have to escalate its intervention beyond sending special forces, advisers and CIA assassination teams. Given Obama-Clinton's stated objective of regime change, there will be no choice but to introduce imperialist troops, send large-scale shipments of armored carriers and tanks, and increase the use of the highly destructive depleted uranium munitions. No doubt Obama, the most public face of supposed humanitarian armed intervention in Africa, will recite bigger and more grotesque lies, as Libyan villagers and townspeople fall victims to his imperial juggernaut. Washington's first black chief executive will earn history's infamy as the US President responsible for the death of hundreds of black Libyans and mass expulsion of thousands of sub- Saharan African workers employed under the current regime. No doubt, Anglo-American progressives and leftists will continue to debate the pros and cons of this intervention, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, the French Socialists and US New Dealers from the 1930s. Hitler and Mussolini's bombing of the Spanish republic on behalf of General Franco's rebel forces, fighting under the banner of "Family, Church and Civilization", can be considered a prototype for Obama's humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Libyan rebels. * The writer is author of What's Left in Latin America? (Ashgate Press, 2009)
